Melancholy Baby

43

I settled into my chair next to her desk. The box of Kleenex was there, where it always was. She was at her desk, sitting sideways, facing me, her chair slightly tilted, her legs crossed. Today she had on a camel-colored suit with a wine-colored top, and a quiet gold necklace.

“I was thinking about my Rosie dream,” I said.

Dr. Silverman nodded.

“Do you understand about dogs?” I said.

“Yes.”

“Do you have a dog?”

“Yes.”

My God, two personal revelations. She must really like me.

“Then you know,” I said, “the degree to which one can love them.”

She nodded her head once, very slightly. Getting herself back under control.

“I realize this isn’t a breakthrough discovery, but I think the dream was symbolic.”

Dr. Silverman looked noncommittal.

“And I think, in the dream, Rosie is love.”

Dr. Silverman cocked her head slightly and raised her eyebrows. It was her code for “Please pursue the thought.”

“If she represents love, and in the dream, I’m afraid because she’s off her leash...”

She nodded her head very slightly, so that it was barely visible, another clue that said “Keep going.” Sometime, I’d have to ask why tiny clues were okay, but you weren’t allowed to say, “Oh, boy, that’s interesting!”

“Help me with this,” I said. “Are dreams warnings? Wish fulfillments? What?”

“Dreams are sometimes simply dramatizations of the circumstance we are in.”

“It’s saying this is how you are?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s not saying this is how you want to be?”

“Probably not,” she said.

“Okay, so I’m afraid to what? Let my love off the leash?”

“You say in the dream Rosie running loose makes you fearful?”

“Yes.”

“Of what?”

“I’ll lose her.”

“Lose love?” Dr. Silverman said.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“In dreams, things often represent more than one thing.”

I sat. Dr. Silverman waited.

“Me?” I said.

She smiled. Bingo! What a good girl am I.

“But not instead of love. Rosie is love, and Rosie is me, and I’m afraid I’ll lose love if I let go, and I’m afraid I’ll lose what? Me, if I let it run?”

I was excited. I felt like something was happening.

“And you felt how when you thought of the dream afterwards?”

“While I was awake?”

Nod.

“I liked it that Rosie was running free,” I said. “The opposite of how I felt in the dream.”

Dr. Silverman nodded.

“So, which is it?” I said.

“Both,” Dr. Silverman said.